The Ministry of Education has sent a second case of irregular construction of an educational center to the Public Prosecutor. It concerns the Alcalá School of Art, which was built with a budget of 1.2 million euros despite the fact that there was no tender or public call for tenders, as required by law and as published by elDiario.es. The payment, which was not supported by any contract, was made by splitting invoices, as if it were a sum of small contracts, thus avoiding economic control and intervention.
This was confirmed by the spokesman for the Madrid government, Miguel Ángel García, during the press conference after the government council: “As soon as the case became known, which the ministry itself investigated, it was put in the hands of the Public Prosecutor's Office. The truth is that the Ministry of Education had informed the Public Prosecutor's Office a first case, that of a vocational training hospital within the macrocomplex of the IES Ciudad Escolar, after repeated complaints of non-payment by the businessman who built it. Of the 2.5 million that were budgeted, he was paid 700,000 euros and even warned an advisor of Díaz Ayuso. Today that health training center is abandoned. The businessman's warnings triggered an investigation that was sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
When elDiario.es published that first case, the department confirmed it and reported that it had dismissed the deputy director of FP, Alfonso Mateos, as responsible for organizing the payments in the internal instruction he made. It also opened a file on two institute directors who made the payments of the invoices distributed on Mateos’ orders. Regardless of the order, building two centers of this size requires technical support of licenses and documentation greater than that of a deputy director of education. Education did not answer at the time whether there were more cases of illegal construction or who the order came from.
Now, and after the publication of the second case on elDiario.es last week, the spokesman for the Ayuso government admits that the Alcalá Art School has also been transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office: “All these situations that are similar to this one will be made public to handle the responsibility as we have already done,” García said, opening the door that these were the first cases, but not the last. “It is the Ministry that has acted,” he stressed.
In the case of the Academy of Arts, not only the dismissed deputy director was informed, but also the then director of the Eastern Territorial Area, Jorge De la Peña – today Ayuso's senior position as general director of Concerted Education and general secretary of the PP of Alcalá – visited the workreceived the plans and made improvement requests to the construction company. Regarding De la Peña's involvement in the case, the government spokesman indicated that “it is being investigated and it is very premature to make any progress or accusations.”